Issue No. 96
April
2018 
The MSCN Newsletter
Welcome to Your April 2018 Newsletter!

Vilhelms Purvītis - Spring Waters (Maestoso) - Google Art Project

This month's newsletter invites you to attend the University of Southern Maine's Symposium on Aging. Hear Julie Sweetland, from the Frameworks Institute in Washington, share some great tools that address agism. In addition, I also have links to some books and articles that contribute to the topic of reframing aging. See the USM Aging Initiative's "Must Reads" and the UMaine Aging Research newsletter's "The Surprising Secrets to Living Longer and Better."

The Gold LEAF Institute has submitted an article "Arctic Travels Anyone?" The description of this recent field will have you celebrating the first signs of Spring (mud) and encourage you to visit the Bowdoin College Art Galleries as soon as possible!

Other events taking place in April include the State Street Traditional Jazz Band performing for this month's "Concerts at Jewett." And, Lewiston-Auburn Senior College's "Food for Thought" will take the audience on a quick trip to Middle Earth! (New Zealand)

Without a doubt, poetry is the inspiration for many popular Senior College classes. Poetry fans living near to Portland can hear USM Poet Marjorie Perloff present "Reading the Verses Backward: Poetry for the Digital Age."

And that is not all! I have two items of news from Maine AARP. 50 towns in the state have now joined the AARP Network of Age-Friendly Communities. Maine has the most age-friendly communities in the nation. Last, but not least Maine AARP has sent over their calendar for Free Shredding and Medicine Disposal Events in 2018!

 
symposium

You are invited to attend the University of Southern Maine's 
"Symposium on Aging"

April 27th. 8:00 am - 3:00 pm
Abromson Center-USM Portland Campus

Register for the Full Day
Registration (free) is required for the full day's program. This includes the workshops and a free lunch!

We have arranged for the keynote speaker and the theater performance to be free and open to the public.
These activities are taking place in the Abromson Auditorium & do not require registration! 
See below for times.

Why have a USM Symposium on Aging?
Maine is the oldest state in the nation. The University of Southern Maine (USM) is committed to building the futures of our students while also serving the interests of our state. We have a tremendous opportunity and a compelling need to ensure that we understand the implications of Maine's demographics and prepare our students for customers, communities, patients, and an economy shaped by these demographics. 

What is the goal of the symposium?
The goal of the USM Symposium on Aging is to raise student awareness of age-related issues while also fostering collaboration across disciplines and departments, engaging students in aging-related scholarship, and build a well-traveled bridge between aging-related scholars at USM and the larger community. 

Senior College and OLLI members are invited to join the conversation!
This USM Aging Initiative recognizes the enormous asset of the Senior College Network and invites Senior College and OLLI members to bring their life experience and love of lifelong learning to the Symposium. Join in this important conversation that is helping to shape the future of Maine's students.

Reframing Aging 
Keynote: Julie Sweetland, from the Frameworks Institute, will present research findings on how Americans understand "aging" and evidence-based strategies for prompting productive rather than negative frames for talking about aging. 
8:30 to 10:15 Unregistered Walk-ins are welcome  to attend the Abromson Auditorium Keynote with Julie Sweetland


My Mother's Clothes are Not My Mother
Elizabeth Peavey will present excerpts from her award-winning, one-woman show which explores the frustrations, tenderness, revelations, and humor entailed in caring for an aging parent, and its aftermath. 
1:00 pm to 2:30 pm.  Unregistered Walk-ins are welcome to attend the Abromson Auditorium performance of "My Mother's Clothes are Not My Mother." 

10:15 am - 1:00 pm
Workshops and Lunch -  Registered Attendees Only!

Workshop summaries:
  • Explore opportunities for engaging in multidisciplinary & inter-professional scholarship, research and experiential learning focused on aging.
  • Hear how our panel members have taken their wisdom, experience and curiosity in new directions after their first half-century.
  • Find out what it feels like to experience dementia by participating in a structured simulation.


Enter the AARP Maine Book raffle!
The AARP will have a table at the Symposium and they are raffling off three books on Disrupt Aging themes!


ArcticTravelsThe Gold LEAF Institute

Arctic Travels, Anyone?
Photogravure portrait of Robert Peary in furs - 1909

Not surprisingly, the first carpool trip listed in the Gold LEAF spring program book had to be postponed due to a whopper of a March Nor'easter which occurred on the originally scheduled date.  Ironically, the trip was to include a visit to Bowdoin College's Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum.  Having to forgo the traveling, it actually felt to many that the "Arctic" came to visit us Mainers instead.

However, storms can't last forever; not even Nor'easters (though it may feel like it).  The trip to Bowdoin was pulled off a week later by the stalwart participants.  The first of two docent-led museum tours was conducted in the Bowdoin College Museum of Art.  The group viewed the various displays of contemporary, Egyptian, and Northern Plains artifacts, to mention but a few.

Of particular note were the very large displays of Assyrian relief sculptures dating back to nearly the 9th century BCE and which came from what is now part of Iraq.  One such plaster relief shows the Assyrian King being anointed by the Winged Spirit Apkallu.  Very old and very large, as GLI President Paul Mullin stated, they were "quite impressive".

In another area focusing on Northern Plains art, a number of recent acquisitions were pointed out by the docent.  One painting is a late 19th century Lakota painting of a Sun Dance Ceremony. While other highlights in the display included artistic works created by both natives and non-natives from the Northern Plains.

After lunch at the Bowdoin cafeteria, (all planned by trip facilitator and Curriculum Committee member Joe Terranova, it was on to North Pole (virtually, that is) in a visit to the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center.  As one enters the building, the first encounter is with that of an actual sled used by Peary to reach the North Pole.  Hand-made, and beat up, it attests to the grueling journeys made by Peary and also by MacMillan, both of whom were graduates of Bowdoin College.  

The journey and the research continue, however, as one docent shared their current-day journeys to the Arctic for the purpose of doing research studies  Included in the museum's displays are many contemporary objects used by native Yupik and Inupait peoples.  There are exhibits of clothing both historical and contemporary.  
Dressed for the Arctic (and Maine)

This last detail, knowledge of the types of clothing suitable to Far North climes could come in very handy indeed. For later that same day, as the group returned home, Maine was hit by yet another Arctic blast, one which would hold sway through the last very long weekend before the purported arrival of Spring. It could not come soon enough.  

Submitted by Eileen Kreutz, Gold LEAF Institute

LAFoodForTHought
Food for Thought at USM Lewiston Auburn Senior College


New Zealand Featured In This Month's College Luncheon
April 13


If you have seen "A Wrinkle in Time" or the earlier films of "Lord of the Rings" you have marveled at New Zealand's spectacular scenery. Mary and David MacMahon are prepared to show you more.

On April 13th 2018, USMLAC Senior College will host them at the Food For Thought luncheon.

In the last five years, the MacMahons have spent 30 weeks in New Zealand. Recently returned, they will talk about the many aspects of life there: gardening, climatic variation, changes taking place in the society, role of the Maori, and dealing with earthquakes. Visit the 'Cardboard Cathedral' built after the earthquake that destroyed the traditional stone building in Christchurch. Find out about 'the NZ brand'. Enjoy more photographs of the fabulous scenery.

The MacMahons were born, educated and married in the U.K. They emigrated to the U.S. in 1976, became citizens, and now live in Poland, ME. They love to travel and New Zealand has become a favorite destination. Join us April 13th and find out why.

Food For Thought lunches are held at the USM campus, 50 Westminster Street, Lewiston, Room 170. If you wish to have lunch, it is $8.00 by reservation only. Call 207-753-6510 before NOON Wednesday April 11. Food may also be purchased at the USM cafeteria. Doors open at 11:30, the talk begins at 12:00.


Submitted by Mary Jane Beardsley, USM Lewiston-Auburn Senior College
JewettConcerts
University of Maine in Augusta Senior College 

"Concerts at Jewett"
April 8
Features the State Street Traditional Jazz Band

PHOTO: Members of the State Street Traditional Jazz Band, from left, Bill Rayne, trombone; Barry Daniels, clarinet; Doug Protsik, piano; John Page, trumpet.
   
The Concerts at Jewett series, sponsored by University of Maine at Augusta College of Arts and Sciences and UMA Senior College, will feature the State Street Traditional Jazz Band at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 8 at UMA Jewett Auditorium, 46 University Drive.
The State Street Traditional Jazz Band performs New Orleans jazz, referring to Dixieland and ragtime styles of the early 1900's.

The band plays under the direction of John Page, founder of the band and a trumpeter since he was eight-years-old. Based in Portland, the band is composed of Peter Dunphy, banjo; Barry Daniels, clarinet; Bill Rayne, trombone; Bill Thurston, drums; Doug Protsik, piano and Pat Whitaker, tuba.

The May Jewett concert will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 20, featuring classical pianist Chiharu Naruse. For information about tickets - available at Pat's Pizza in Augusta, Dave's Appliance in Winthrop and at the door - call 207-621-3551, or email.


USMPoet
University of Southern Maine Portland campus

Poet Marjorie Perloff
Reading the Verses Backward: Poetry for the Digital Age
Sponsored by the USM Department of English
April 11, 2018
5:00 PM
423/424 Glickman Library, Portland
Free and open to the public

Marjorie Perloff's talk addresses a central issue for poets and readers: since as early as James Joyce and Ezra Pound, poetry has ceased to be defined as rhymed, metric, and linear. Both Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, for example, used spatial effects, Marianne Moore wrote in syllabics, and "Joyce and his contemporaries . . . first questioned the poetry-verse relationship." 

Poetry is no longer defined in terms of verse, but it is also, according to Perloff, not simply lined prose. Rather, the modernist revolution of the early 20th century has been followed by the contemporary avant-garde revolution "which is of course the digital revolution." "Poetry," she claims, "is a timeless art," "we associate it with intensity, condensation, complexity, and figuration, whether tropical or rhetorical. Each age, however, makes use of the poetic technologies appropriate to it." Today that includes "the possibilities of montage, splicing, mashing, overlaying, erasure, multimedia." And "even when there is no recourse to mixed media . . . poetry comes to us in new ways."

Professor Marjorie Perloff teaches courses and writes on twentieth and now twenty-first century poetry and poetics, both Anglo-American and from a Comparatist perspective, as well as on intermedia and the visual arts. She is Professor Emerita of English at Stanford University and Florence R. Scott Professor of English Emerita at the University of Southern California. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

AARPFriendlycommunities
AARP Maine Press Release, March 21, 2018


Milestone Achieved as Maine's 50th Community - Joins AARP Age-Friendly Network

With the recent additions of Waldo County, Caribou, and Ogunquit, Maine, AARP Maine announced on March 21st that a total of 50 communities in the state have joined the AARP Network of Age-Friendly Communities (NAFC). Maine continues to lead the nation in the number of towns, large and small, that are making a difference in the lives of residents of all ages through creative and cooperative accomplishments.

(Click on the map above for more information.) The stars represent member towns, cities and counties in the AARP Network of Age-Friendly Communities.


AgingInitReads

Must Reads: Noteworthy aging-related events and publications

"Design for Aging: Jikka House" on Senior Planet.
This brief article describes an innovative communal housing design for older adults in Japan that is also exceptionally beautiful. The Jikka House is an inspiring example of how we can design retirement homes as functional spaces while keeping aesthetic and healing principles in mind. 

This report describes the proceedings of an October 2017 public workshop that was convened to better understand how stereotypes affect older adults and individuals with disabilities from social, cultural, and research perspectives, as well as how we can disrupt negative stereotypes and "outdated beliefs about aging".

AARP Maine has teamed up with the Maine Media Collective to produce a new magazine for people over 50. The publication will focus on Mainers over 50 who are challenging our notions of aging through positive impacts at the state and local levels. The inaugural issue features stories on caregiving, age-friendly initiatives, volunteerism, and many more.  Send an email note if you would you like a free copy of the inaugural March issue of Ageless Maine? 

SoCoast-Innovative-ClassesYorkCounty-GarySullivanLecturesSecretsofAging
(Detail) Rembrandt Self-portrait as the Laughing Zeuxis while Painting an Old Woman


Recommended Read: 
The Surprising Secrets to Living Longer and Better  
By: Jeffery Kluger and Alexandra Sifferlin, TIME Magazine, February 15, 2018 

"Old age demands to be taken very seriously and it usually gets its way. It's hard to be cavalier about a time of life defined by loss of vigor, increasing frailty, rising disease risk and falling cognitive faculties. Then there's the unavoidable matter of the end of consciousness and the self-death, in other words-that's drawing closer and closer. It's the rare person who can confront the final decline with flippancy or ease. That, as it turns out, might be our first mistake." 

Shredding
AARP Maine Announcement:
Free Shredding and Medicine Disposal Events in 2018!

Scams and frauds are on the rise, but Mainers can take active steps to protect themselves and their families. AARP Maine is once again collaborating with the Maine Sheriff's Association to host free shredding events and medicine disposal events. Please join us and bring your friends and family!

In April, we are once again teaming up with the County Sheriff's Offices in Augusta, Bangor and Portland. Last year, we shredded over 50,000 pounds! We are also collaborating with some of the AARP Network of Age-Friendly Communities to expand our free shredding events even further throughout Maine. Please see the calendar, below.

Augusta:
Kennebec County Sheriff's Office, 125 State Street, Augusta on Saturday, April 28, 2018. 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.


Bangor:
Bangor Airport Mall on Union Street on Friday, April 27, 2018 . 7:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Portland:
Cumberland County Sheriff's Office, 36 County Way, Portland on Saturday, April 28, 2018. 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.**


Bucksport:
(PAPER SHREDDING ONLY - NO MEDS) Bucksport High School at 102 Broadway, May 5, 2018. 10:00 AM - 1:PM


Old Orchard Beach:
(PAPER SHREDDING ONLY - NO MEDS) Old Orchard Beach High School at 40 E. Emerson Cummings Blvd., June 16, 2018. 10:30 - 2:30 PM



The MSCN newsletter is sent to each Senior College board. The boards then forward the newsletter to their membership. However, if you are not a member of a Senior College or perhaps you are, and you simply want the news "hot off the press" subscribe here! 
 
Newsletter Submissions Deadline Date:
The 26th of each month!

Please submit your articles and photographs to Anne Cardale at acardale@maine.edu.


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